The following mod attempts to integrate a complete new faction into the base game that does not deviate wildly from it. This faction is formally known as the Tyrador Safeguard Coalition, or colloquially, as the Coalition.

The mod itself tries to introduce a "Forge World" fantasy into the game, where the Coalition faction is centered around a single heavily populated industrialized planet, in a heavily defended system.And meanwhile the faction was not an interstellar megacorporation like the Tri-Tachyon, it surely was the home of several innovations, some of these creations being retconned to before the fall of the domain, as such many of the ships added by the mod have some vanilla faction skins, specially Tri-Tachyon skins, since the "natives" would have worked closely with them.

Style wise, the faction ships, overall, are flavored between midline and hightech, leaning more closely to the later.In regards to gameplay, the faction is pretty much focused in larger ships, where destroyers and smaller vessels are mostly relegated to support functions. Many of the ships have severe downfalls, requiring the player to deploy well balanced fleets into battle. The exception to this is capital vessels, which are quite capable on their own.

The mod also adds a new kind of weapon, known as drone bays and drone racks, this weaponry enables a ship to provide a constant stream (1 wing per minute) of highly disposable drones, or just a single wing them, respectively. Considering the upcoming changes to fighters in the next update I avoided adding more variety of drone bays/racks, and depending on how they behave, I might add a larger variety of them, or scrap the concept.Lore:

Origins of the Coalition:

The Coalition owes its creation to the Collapse. As the news of the gates closing reached the population of Arcon, despair began to settle in.

You see, Arcon was completely unable to feed the population it currently had. The planet housed about one hundred and twenty million souls at the time, it is much lower now, though.

Arcon was entirely dependent on food imports coming from the gates, and with their closing, not just the planet, but the whole system would surely perish.

Worldwide protests erupted demanding a solution, but none was given, actually none could be given. The local Domain forces just told us to wait, and that the gates would reopen in time.

Months passed, and there were no news from the gates, and as stockpiles dwindled famine began to settle in.

It was not something I'm proud of, but if I had to do it I would do it again. In order to alleviate the situation a bit, we began... I took command of some PDF, and under a red flag, began raiding the neighboring systems.

It was not much but it was something, and in time it was something that was done to us too. Raids on our systems were increasing. It was clearly an unsustainable situation. But suddenly there was a spark of hope.

The big boys at Praxis had an interesting proposal. We would eat Reydian wildlife, it was a completely fantastic and utterly dumb idea. To consume alien life, even if it was exceptionally similar to our own, haha!, you should have seen the news of the time.

Surely we could have retroengineered the lifeforms to be more compatible, but that would have taken years, and we did not have the time. No, they proposed something much simpler, to treat our new food source with engineered bacteria which would consume it an in exchange produce an edible grey goop.

It was sound, it was doable, it was our salvation, yet it was illegal. Reydes was a garden world, and its unique but strangely similar biochemistry to our own, the notion of ancient panspermia made it even more appealing to the Domain's scientific interests.

In the end it was what made us take action. The grand admiral wouldn't let us, so we had to make it happen. We rebelled, PDF and even some of my fellow Domain officers, struck down the local Domain HQ on the ring.

Now nobody stood between us and our salvation, one last battle was ahead of us. We rushed to Reydes followed by countless ships converted for fishing and science vessels.

We expected a glorious last stand, but we found nothing. In my excitement, I never took in consideration that the other worlds in the system were as much dependant as we were on the gates. Reydes population was minimal, just extremely isolated scientific outposts, they had no chance against the raids as we had suffered. We took the survivors in, salvaged everything we could, and began the next phase of the plan...

-Implemented "timed expiration" system for weapon spawned drones: -Affects Kulbeda, Corvo, Kabura-ya drones and Dronepods. -Does not affect Caltrop-class phase mine drones. -Drones affected by the system loose their CR constantly (even if there are no enemies on the map). -CR dependent effects: -CR = 0%: drone gets a high random chance to explode on the spot(adds a bit extra randomness so they don't all explode exactly at the same time). -CR ? 1%: drone suddenly stops functioning. -CR ? 5%: drone will try to self destruct by ramming into a nearby enemy vessel, doing low kinetic damage (mostly visual). (Dronepods will forcefully release their drones). -CR > 5%: drone behaves normally. -Renamed Chakram's "Ion Pulser" to "Ion Micropulser"; the name change was reverted accidentally and went unnoticed. -Add the Anvil-class Forgeship, a "ship" version of TSC mobile shipyard stations, mission-exclusive content... for now, depending on next game update. -Added the Ayllo-class Frigate, a scout/surveying themed drone tender ship that uses built-in weapon spawned drones. -Added the Kabura-ya-class Scout Drone, a built-in weapon spawned drone, it lacks the "Low Resolution Sensors" hullmod found in the other weapon spawned drones. -Added Dronepods (for Kulbeda and Corvo drones), large weapon spawned shielded "drones", that release drones when: near an enemy, their CR gets too low, or they start getting HP damage. Just like a MIRV they can still be shot down before releasing their contents though. -Added the "Drone Swarm" shipsystem, the system reloads the ammunition of drone spawner weapons and sets their cooldown to 0. Currently used by Ayllo, Kestros and Atlatl classes. -Added the "Shield Burst" shipsystem, the system deploys a short lived 360° shield that grows in size up to 5 times the ship shield's normal radius, the shield does not collide with allies. Currently used by Adarga-class. -Added the "Mega Shield Burst" shipsystem, a much larger version of the "Shield Burst" shipsystem, with a slightly longer duration, less charges and slower recharge. Currently used by Anvil-class Forgeships (mission-only content). -Added "Kamikaze" shipsystems for Kulbeda, Corvo and Kabura-ya drones. -Added Dmod "Damaged Particle Conduits", a milder version of "Unreliable Subsystems" that also blocks "Hardened Subsystems" and "Integrated Particle Conduits" using hullmods, used by (P) skins and can be rolled in recovered TSC ships. -"Integrated Particle Conduits" hullmod blocks "Hardened Subsystems" hullmod. -Fixed autofit hullmod installing minor exploit. -Fixed bug that made weapon spawned drones use fleet deployment points. -Corrected OP values for carriers; was using outdated formula for launch bays. -Corrected laser offsets for fighters. -Added Kulbeda Dronepod Launcher weapon, a large sized missile weapon that deploys 6 Kulbeda drones. -Added Corvo Dronepod Launcher weapon, a large sized missile weapon that deploys 4 Corvo drones. -Added Warden PD System "modular" weapon, a large sized energy weapon similar to the Pavise-class frontal mounted built-in weapon, but a bit less powerful. -Added Disruptor Burst Beam weapon, a medium sized energy weapon, similar to the Disruptor Beam Cannon, it does a small amount of hard flux damage to raised shields, however unlike it, it is not a constant beam working similarly to a Burst PD Beam. -Added Orchid-class Torpedo Launcher weapon, a small sized missile weapon with 2 Orchid Torpedoes, each torpedo does about 55% the damage of a Lotus Torpedo. -Added new graphical effect to Plasma Lance and Warden PD System projectiles. -Added story mission: "To Tame a Land". -Ship variants updated.

-Mod updated to 0.8.1a. -Gameplay Changes: -Halberd-class Battleship built-in Disruptor Beam Cannon stats made identical to the modular-buyable version. -Halberd-class Battleship ship system "Phase Jump" replaced with "Ram Drive". -Halberd-class, Lance-class and Angon-class are now "Ships with modules", and now equipped with a secondary shield emitter activated by turning on their "Ram Drives". -Angon-class Transport "Ram Drive" is now a lesser version (less efficient shield) of the one equipped by the Angon-class and Halberd-class. -Amentum-class Carrier "Recall Device" ship system replaced with "Reserve Deployment". -Kestros-class Cruiser "Reserve Deployment" ship system replaced with "High Energy Focus" (this is a temporal measure, since I've not coded or sprited its new intended system). -Buffed the Tessen-class, longer peak CR time, lower deployment costs, now it is a good alternative to sacrificing a combat ship's battle effectiveness by adding the Fleet Server Hullmod to it. -All TSC fighters got the vanilla "No Weapon Flux" hullmod. -Combat stats of Gunship style fighters (Scimitar, Chakram and Tomahawk) were buffed a bit. -Fighter LPC OP cost reduced a bit overall. -IR Pulse Lasers employed by TSC fighters replaced with IR Pulse Lasers (High Delay) the vanilla fighter version of the weapon. -Added a fighter IR Pulse Laser to the Kunai-class Strike Fighter. -Added a fighter IR Pulse Laser and a Stinger-class Proximity Mine to the Shuriken-class Interceptor. -Javelin-class Heavy Bomber, Chakram-class Support Gunship and Tomahawk-class Attack Gunship had their sprites redone. -Javelin-class Heavy Bomber, Chakram-class Support Gunship and Tomahawk-class Attack Gunship had their speed stat equalized, they are currently designed to be used in tandem. -Chakram-class dual Ion Cannon's replaced with a single Ion Micropulser, a smaller version of the Ion pulser. -Javelin-class dual Reaper-class Torpedoes replaced with the new Lotus-class Torpedo (overall damage nerf). -Javelin-class now has an Omni shield and Maneuvering Jets as ship system. -Added Advanced Optics hullmod to Sai-class Defense Drones in order to make them "competitive" when compared to Wasps. -Increased the number of Corvo-class Combat Drones deployed by the Corvo Drone Rack weapon to 4 drones in a single wave. -Increased the number of Caltrop-class Phase Mine carried by the Caltrop Mine Rack weapon to 3 mines, deployed individually. -Increased the number of Misericorde-class Phase Drones in a wing to 4. -Increased the number of Buckler-class Shield Drones in a wing to 3. -Replaced the Decoy Flare Launcher ship system of the Buckler-class with a lesser version of the Active Flare Launcher system. -(D) skins are now closer in line to vanilla (D) skins. -All (D) skins can now be restored to their default skin, for most ships this means the TSC skin, even for those that have a TT skin. -Medusa (D) is now a vanilla Medusa-class skin. -Introduced a new missile weapon, the Lotus-class Torpedo Launcher, it comes in fighter size (single), small mount size (Lotus-class Torpedo), medium mount size (Rainstorm Lotus Launcher), large mount size (Monsoon Lotus Launcher). The weapon is a poorly guided MIRV-like missile that splits into 8 two stage rockets that deal energy damage, the warheads themselves are not very accurate. -Ship loadouts altered to reflect changes.

-Bug Fixes and Improvements: -Major unreported bug regarding weapon spawned drones (Corvo and Kulbeda) where they were able to attack an enemy ship and suffer no counterattack was fixed. (Main reason for the delay, required me to figure a way to deal with their AI, and maybe lose the search pattern they exhibit, thankfully I was able to keep the behavior thanks to a second AI altering script). -Removed deployment spam messages when spawning weapon based drones. -Player or the AI, can't turn the shield off when using the Ram drive shipsystem (affects Angon-class, Lance-class and Halberd-class). -Claymore built-in missile can no longer get more than 1 ammo, mostly flavor, its reload time was too long to actually happen. -Fighter wings removed from the simulator. -Fixed the use of incorrect directory separator in "Coalition_texture_data.csv". -Replaced the use of "cover" with "Cover" in "hull_styles.json". -Added system weapon slots for the ship hulls that use a weapon shipsystem, that were currently missing it. -Misc. Changes: -Anything else I forgot to type here.

(Read as ongoing, upcoming...someday, likely by the end of next version's life cycle, or even later; actually, just some of the things I want to do):-Listen to feedback.-Playtesting.-Bug fixing. (If any)-Balancing, balancing, balancing. (Listening to feedback again)-Battlestations!!!, and their proper implementation.-Campaign implementation of some unique skins, like the Onslaught (TSC).-Add the Arydas system, and integrate the corresponding story component. (System Added, lore not written... yet)-Add maybe 1 or 2 extra systems, depending on next update. (Probably not happening)-Add After the Collapse/Early Coalition missions.-Add Hegemonic Invasion Campaign missions.-Add Arydas Crisis missions. -Add "older/prototype" variants of some ships to indicate technological development. Mainly mission content, but could be integrated into the campaign, depending on the next version of the game. (Most likely not with new sprites, to avoid unnecessary vram use)-Add more vanilla faction skins, specially non TT skins. (On the way there, just a pair more)-Descriptions, descriptions, descriptions; not like they are not there, I just need to revise them.-Typos, typos, typos.-REDACTED.-REDACTED.-Probably stuff I'm forgetting right now. Or is it more redacted stuff?.-Add more "hidden" references. (Done)

@Uomoz:Feel free to do so... actually that would be cool .Though I haven't made any weapons yet, and meanwhile balance seems OK to me, I'm not quite sure it actually is... well, at least I don't have capitals that easily destroy Paragons (if I control the Paragon, Halberds don't last long; meanwhile if I control the Halberd, the Paragon lasts a while, and the Halberd gets some damage). On the otherside maybe the figthers are somewhat OP.Well that was the point of this release, getting some balance feedback done, and bugtesting.

@SpainardSlayer:Mostly kitbashed, I just tried to blend the pieces, it's much more aparent when you turn them blue though.

Well I would love to update it for 0.6a, or maybe 0.6.1a (probably the later). I currently have the mod working on it, though I haven't properly updated the ships to balance them or add the CR mechanics either, neither have I added most of the latest ships I've done (nothing new that's not on the Spriters judgement thread), I've just been having fun making planets, and brainstorming some ship systems and weapons.I'm not planning to add a lot of weapons, just ones that work well with the current ships weaknesses, like the Plasma Lance, which is great on a Sabre, even if it's basically a Plasma Cannon that's unable to cause an overload in 1 shot but mantains its DPS (no burst but faster fire rate means it's less likely to cause a sudden overload in the enemy but it won't overload your Sabre either) or relatively weird weapons (like an explosive "laser", yes, it sounds dumb but it will have a nice lore explanation).

However I'm still slightly busy with work; my current surge of activity is mostly due to noticing the update last week during our national holyday (I got the whole week free). Heh, it even managed to get me away from GTA V, and I thought that wouldn't be possible.In short, I should probably not be modding right now, but I'm still going to do it .

Honestly, I'm not sure if I should be bumping this thread... meh, thread necromancy is go.

I've been away for quite a while, managed to finish my thesis, started working, and currently looking to get a Ph.D in Biochemistry, which I should be starting next year... if everything goes just as planned.Hence why I'm not sure about the following, considering I have no idea if my free time will ever let me finish this mod properly.I don't expect to release anything soon, besides the sprites I've worked on. So consider this a preview of an update that's not done. Whenever I do actually release something, I'll update the first post.

Tyrador System Coalition

Lore:

The Coalition is one of many factions formed from the remains of the Domain.The collapse of the Domain meant the downfall of civilization, gates were shut contact with the rest of humanity was lost and supplies became harder and harder to come by.

This was especially hard for the Tyrador system, as no world in it was completely self sufficient, with no external support, the system would slowly but surely fall into chaos. This prompted the creation of a new organism to ensure the survival of the system and so the Tyrador Safeguard Coalition (TSC) was established.

Or at least that is what the official records say. Some see the creation of the Coalition just an excuse by the leaders of Arcon, the most developed world in the system, to expand their control to the entire system, but more importantly securing a stable source of food. Heavily industrialized and subsequently completely polluted the world of Arcon had no way to support its population and was completely reliant in food imports.The first act of the Coalition was the absorption of the other planets in the system, an event that was done peacefully, after all the rest of the system's population accounted for barely a million of inhabitants, and had no way to oppose the industrial giant.With absorption of Reydes a food source was secured. Before the Coalition, Reydes was scarcely populated, the Domain had prohibited extensive settlement due to scientific interest, since its oceans hosted native life forms. After the Coalition, Reydes was quickly industrialized in a massive effort to develop a planetary wide fishing industry.

With this act, the core of the system was stabilized. But peace did not last long, the sector itself was not stable and raids were becoming more common. As piracy increased the Coalition was forced to militarize itself. At the time their navy was mostly a haphazardly refitted trading fleet, and battles did not usually go very well for the Coalition, which was able to prevail based only on its industrial might.

It was a pure act of luck that changed fate, a scouting party chasing some pirates at the edge of the system found an anomaly floating deep inside the system's comet cloud, a small Domain base. The base showed signs of occupation, probably from pirates, and anything of obvious value was already looted. Believing that the facility still had some value, the ruling body sent an expedition to reactivate the base. The effort was not fruitless, meanwhile there were no usable equipment left, a big cache of data was found, mostly damaged and incomplete, but nothing some reverse engineering could not fix. After a decade of development the Coalition started modernizing its fleet managing to repel hostile raids, finally cementing its power.

Then came the Hegemony. Looking to reestablish the Domain of Man, the Hegemony claimed the Tyrador system as theirs, this was not well received by the TSC. The ensuing conflict was long and bloody. The conflict was finally resolved at the battle of Tiilo, with the destruction of the Hegemony's forward base and their retreat from the system. In its victory Coalition made a declaration of independence to the whole sector. But this was not the end, this event also marked the transformation of a isolationist government into one invested in external affairs.As order returns to the sector, the Coalition will not let itself lose what it had achieved...

Future Content:

Ships:

Capital Ships:Halberd-class DreadnoughtHeaviest ship of the Coalition, usually used as a flagship. Heavily armored, shielded and slow. Despite this it is still used as the spearhead of any battle it participates in thanks to its phase jump system (Not coded, meant to teleport to the center of the map, and it's only to be used once per battle).Atlalt-class Fleet CarrierCenter piece of many fleets. Unlike most carriers, it is heavily armed and able to hold its own against enemy cruisers. Atlalt-class carriers act as host to 4 Misericorde phase attack drones.

Claymore-class BattleshipA recent development. The Claymore-class sports a massive missile meant for orbital bombardment. While lightly armed it can forego any defensive mounts thanks to its Sai-class defensive drones.

Cruisers:

Lance-class BattlecruiserSpearhead of many fleets. Lance-class are usually employed in ramming formations thanks to its heavy frontal shields and fast engines. Lance-class can also be found retrofitted into combat freighters carrying 4 loader drones. An interesting twist due the civilian origin of the design.

(WIP)Pavise-class Support CruiserMeat shield. Featuring fortress shields it is sually deployed as cover for other smaller ships, and thanks to its integrated point defense system Pavise-class are known as the bane of fighters.Kestros-class Drone CarrierDrone tender. The Kestros-class features heavy frontal facing energy weapons, the 4 Corvo-class attack drones are just the icing of the cake.

Amentum-Class Light CarrierMobile flight deck. The Amentum-class is lightly armored and armed, its main use is to provide a large number of flight decks at a low cost. NO SYSTEM YET

Destroyers:

Sagaris-class Missile DestroyerHeavy missile boat. The Sagaris-class main feature is a large sized missile mount, it is used to deal a lot of damage to bigger targets than itself. CURRENTLY PHASE SKIMMER

Sabre-class Fast Attack DestroyerFrigate's bane. Extremely fast, the Sabre-class is master at positioning itself, not only it sports a phase skimmer system, but it also has a 360° coverage large energy mount. It does not have to flux capacity to make full use of it though.

Woomera-class Escort CarrierSupport Carrier. A cheap way to add some fighters to a fleet. It also supports 2 Buckler-class shield projector drones.

Labrys-class Missile PlatformMissile spam. A "cheap" way to add lots of boom to a fleet. Cruiser slow but packing a punch, Labrys-class are useful when dealing with cruisers, yet they can be easily defeated by faster moving opponents like frigates or heavy enough targets like capitals.

Frigates:

Ranseur-class Missile FrigateLight missile boat. The Ranseur-class is the most common frigate in Coalition fleets, designed to combat frigates, it can use its auxiliary thrusters to help it deal with destroyers.

Koncerz-class Fast Attack FrigateSabre's younger brother. Faster than the Sabre, but lacking its weaponry, the Koncerz-class excels at hunting down other frigates and fighters, but is merely an annoyance to bigger ships yet it works surprisingly well in small groups.

Adarga-class Defensive PlatformPoint defense galore. Designed to support larger ships in combat. The Adarga-class is well defended but it is also slow, enough to be unable keep up with other frigates yet it can overload its drives to get it where you need it.

Penarch-class Troop TransportTransports troops... duh. The slow, heavily armored and shielded Penarch-class was designed for ground operations and boarding actions. It also carries 2 Kris-class combat shuttles that can be deployed in battle.

Tomahawk Gunship WingHeavily armed, shielded and armored. Tomahawks are slow but though enough to deal with other fighters and powerful enough to deal damage to larger targets.

Chakram Support WingHacking but no slashing. Usually found in larger fleets, Chakrams employ EMP cannons to disable larger ships, enabling other ships to deal damage.

Kunai Strike Craft WingJack of all trades. Meanwhile not particularly effective against any specific target, Kunai carry small fast tracking missiles that do well against anything.

Shuriken Interceptor WingLightning fast. Shuriken excel at dealing with other fighters but are mostly worthless against anything else.

Weapons:

Energy Weapons:

Plasma LanceLarge energy weapon. A flux efficient plasma cannon, it keeps the DPS and flux per shot of the standard plasma cannon but looses the ability to burst fire, so causing overloads becomes way harder, works great in limited flux capacity ships like the Sabre.

Large energy weapon. A fast firing weapon, a less powerful energy analogue of the storm needler.

Missile Weapons:

RepeaterLarge missile weapon. Missile spam incarnate, who needs guns when you got this many rockets?

Discarded Content:

The following can be used by any mod, no permission needed, just give me a little mention.

Well this concludes the future update content showcase, I hope you enjoy it. And please ask for my permission if you want to use any other content of this mod in your own .

I'm really happy to see you're still around. Your mod too, always had a soft spot for your sprites.

Your ideas sounds pretty interesting, just a bit worried about the Halberd ship system. This would be moderately interesting to play with and the enemy bombers will love seeing a capital ship all by itself.

Also be careful about missile based ships. Nothing can break balance like mindless missile spam.

@Ahne:Not yet, hopefully sometime in the near future, at least before I need to update again. Latest update of the mod was when crew readiness was introduced, however that never left dev status and was unreleased... So yeah current release is kinda ancient.

@HELMUT:In relation to the missile spam, I'll keep it balanced, or at least I'll try to. Anyway "big" missile barrages will be used as kinetic weapon replacements, as no Coalition ship will have those. The only thing that seems imbalanced so far is the Labrys, since it can deal with cruisers by itself, just by mounting several reapers, yet it's really slow, like a cruiser, and fragile, like a frigate. Properly balancing it will require some playtesting.But so far when I play against it, I just focus fire it, and it stops being a problem. When I play with it, it only seems useful 1 on 1 against cruisers. My current impression is that it might be underpowered.If it was on relation to the "missile boats", they also equip energy weapons, currently the Sagarys has only the large frontal and the 2 small frontal hardpoints designed as missiles, and it will not be a phase skimmer. The Ranseur's 2 frontal and 2 side hardpoints are its missiles.

However i just noticed that the Sabre feel very... Work in progress? The smooth part around the prow and the two small turrets in particular, something's definitely missing there. Maybe a few lines and/or bright spots like the one on its left?

This mod....brings memories from ancient times when everyone was stranded in Corvus.....Completely forgot about it thou and never thought someone would come back to modding after 2 years.How do you like the game now?

@HELMUT:Yeah it is meant as a new portrait.And no the Sabre was meant to be finished, but I agree to your feedback. Honestly I think I read too much in David's "The Trouble With Greebles" blogpost, and consequently went overboard with some ships, specifically the Pavise and the Sabre. Specially with the Pavise, heh... the new Pavise was built on top of the previous one. I smoothed it so much it became a green lump with some details, and then started making something new over the green mess.Since I don't want to fill my dropbox with several variants of each ship, I just updated the Coalition schemed Sabre with some extra details, left the TT Sabre as it was before; note that TT Sabre never had the grey sharpened blade border at the front, so that's not a new detail on the normal Sabre, also that will be the only difference between the 2 versions, besides the color. And... additional feedback is always appreciated.

@Sabaton:I kinda never left, I'm usually mostly a lurker and only post when I have something to post, in every single forum I've ever been part of. And since I was really busy doing my thesis, I had no time to do much, so no content to post, which meant no posts from my part.Besides that I really like the game in its current state and honestly I would be happy if the game was released as it is with the addition of random sector generation just to add some replayability. If you're reading this Alex, please don't pay attention to this and keep doing your thing.

Portraits (so far):

Grunt, Pilot, Admiral (I only consider the masked coalition grunt as done, but I'm happy with the other 2, so they might not receive changes)